"A Committee of Correspondence"

11 November 2019

Ap Bu Nho - A Remembrance for Veteran's Day

Garryowen in Glory, the 7th Cavalry Regiment at Ap Bu Nho

By a quirk of fate, “D” 2/7 Cavalry, was given the chance to demonstrate the plausibility of Spinoza’s despair several weeks later. A Montagnard agent reported that the 141st NVA Regiment was temporarily in position just to the west of the Montagnard resettlement village of Ap (village) Bu Nho about 20 kilometers southwest of Song Be. This village, like several others in Phuoc Long province, had been created in the course of earlier years of war and migration throughout Indochina. It was perfectly rectangular, three streets wide and five hundred feet long with the long axis running east-west, with a dirt road extending to the tar two lane road connecting Song Be with the south. The Song Be River passed north-south to the west of the village. There was a roughly circular patch of woods just northwest of the village. The wood was about one kilometer in diameter. The river ran along the west side of the wood. On the eastern side of the wood, there was a large open “field” covered with grass nearly hip high. The field extended along the whole northern side of the village out to the tar road and beyond. The inhabitants were three or four hundred in number, living in tribal style in long houses and other small flimsily built shacks. They had originally lived in the area of Camp Roland in the northeastern corner of PhuocLongProvince, and had moved or been moved to this site during the First Indochina War. They were S’tiengan people. The agent was one of them and lived in Bu Nho.

I drove to Landing Zone “Buttons” with this information to visit the command post of the Second Battalion, Seventh Cavalry, then operating out of the landing zone. In the underground facility, I talked to the S-2 (Intelligence Staff Officer) of the battalion. I had been providing this officer with information for some time. An example had been the information that led to the BDA mission mentioned above. While we two intelligence officers were discussing the report, the lieutenant colonel commanding 2/7 Cav entered the command post. He was new, having arrived in country within the previous month, and having joined the battalion the week before. In his late thirties, blond, and in his new found dignity, he had a “lean and hungry look.” The S-2 introduced me to him, told him how valuable the detachment’s information had been in the past. The Bn. CO seemed to have a hard time understanding who I was. In talking to me he seemed to be more interested in “showing off” for his operations staff who had followed him into the bunker than in listening. The idea of an intelligence officer resident in the province who had brought him information seemed more than he could handle. After a few minutes, he tired of the whole thing, and asked to be shown on the map. After a glance, he asked the S-3, another superior being and soi-disant tactical virtuoso, what “D” Company was doing the next day. The major said that “D” was in LZ “Buttons” resting and refitting. The CO casually said “Well, put’em in there at first light.” His finger indicated the big, grassy clearing in the angle between Bu Nho and the round woods to the west. The S-2 looked at me, opened his mouth and then said nothing.

I thought What the hell! I don’t work for this man.. “Colonel,” I began, “there is at least a battalion of the 141st NVA Regiment in that wood. They are the best troops in the 7th NVA Division, which is the best in their army. They have been in that wood for at least two weeks. They will be ready.” The CO was irritated. “That’s all right, Captain,” he said. “You are really a captain, aren’t you? We’ll take it from here. Most of these reports are untrue. Why, when I was here as an adviser in the Delta, none of the stuff we got from you people was true.” So, the man didn’t believe the report and was just looking for something for “D” Company to do. This was a delicate situation. “I must protest, sir,” I began. “I would be negligent...” “That will be all!” the CO barked. “Good Day!” The sycophants on the staff bristled in the hope that their master would recognize them as the good dogs they were.

I drove back to Song Be and called my higher headquarters to tell them that a disaster was about to occur. The foreseeable reply from 525th MIG in Saigon was that they would not attempt to interfere with the exercise of command by a line officer in command of troops in the field. I then asked for a helicopter to come to Song Be to be at my disposal the next day. This was agreed. The “Huey” showed up early and I was sitting in the thing at 3,000 feet listening to the 1st Cavalry Division when the fire preparation of Ap Bu Nho commenced.

“They will not grow old, as we who are left grow old,

Age will not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun, and in the mornings,

We shall remember them..”

A.E. Housman - inscribed in Washington Archat VMI

First, there was a lot of fire from corps heavy artillery batteries, including the one at Victor 241 airfield. Then, there were Tacair fighter strikes with bombs and rockets, then there was a massive fire preparation by armed helicopters, of which the 1st Cavalry Division had many. The bombs, shells, and rockets searched the round wood and the big, grassy field. While the armed helicopters were still working on the patch of forest, the twenty odd “Huey Slicks”, (transports unarmed except for a machine gun on each side), swooped onto the scene from the east, having picked up “D” Company at LZ “Buttons.” Throughout the preparation, there had not been a shot fired from the area under bombardment. I could hear the Cavalry Division talking about it on the air. Their opinion was that this would be a “cold” LZ, and that the enemy were not present. With mixed feelings, I watched the assault unfold. The landing was in two columns of helicopters, which were perhaps fifty yards apart. There were about ten helicopters in each column. The cavalry troops scrambled out and headed for the round wood.

The 141st NVA Infantry Regiment had held its fire throughout the preparatory bombardment, a remarkable display of fire discipline. Now, as the helicopters lifted in unison, they opened fire in a roaring, ripping demonstration of just how much firepower a well trained and disciplined light infantry force can possess. Four “Slicks” were shot down on the LZ. All four exploded. It was not likely that anyone lived. The fire balls killed a number of “D” Company men nearby. Several more helicopters were badly damaged and departed smoking. The NVA had organized the defense of the wood in such a way that interlocking bands of machine gun fire from log and earth bunkers cris-crossed out in the field. The guns appeared to have been laid so that the fire was about two to three feet above the ground. The inevitable dips in the ground (dead space) were filled with the fires of mortars shooting from positions behind the bunker line. A general in the War Between the States remarked on a similar occasion that “not even a chicken could live under that fire.” It was thus. The NVA were all in the round wood. The bunkers themselves, as later inspected, were solid with two layers of hardwood logs separated by a foot of packed earth and with another layer of earth on top. They had firing embrasures six inches high, were sited for mutual support and were staggered in depth. “D” Company 2/7 Cavalry was “dead meat” out in that field in the bright sunlight. They could not move forward and to move back meant rising which was certain death.

The fighters and armed helicopters returned to repeatedly bomb and rocket the woods. Corps artillery joined in whenever the aircraft left off.. It did not help. 12.7 mm heavy machine guns and RPG-7 teams engaged the aircraft from within the NVA position. The iron grip of the 141st NVA held “D” Company fast. Everyone was pinned flat on the LZ, face to the dirt.

Additional Cavalry troops began to be inserted into the fight. The rest of 2/7 Cav landed to the east of “D” Company, 1/5 Cav landed north of the round wood, and 2/12 Cav landed to the west of the Song Be river, west of the round wood. All these insertions were by helicopter. What they discovered, as they closed on the wood, was that the 141st had organized the position for a 360 degree, all around defense. The fire and bunkers were just as solid on the other sides as on the east. The position was so large and so well put together that it may well have contained the whole 141st Regiment. The reinforcements got nowhere. The only difference between their situations and that of “D” Company was that they were not pinned down at close quarters. All of these units took substantial losses in this fight.

Wounded from “D” Company crawled toward the eastern side of the clearing, toward the earthen “dike” that carried the main north-south road. They could be seen with the naked eye from the air. As some got across the road, Med-evac helicopters (Dustoffs) began landing in the fire shadow of the road to pick them up. The warrant officer flying the 525th MIG “Huey” told me he intended to land to pick up wounded. Altogether, the strange helicopter with the blue boomerang insignia on the tail boom, made four trips from LZ “Buttons” to Ap Bu Nho carrying 2/7 Cav’s wounded. After a while, the floor of the bird was slippery, and everyone in back was busy trying to keep some of them alive long enough to deliver them to the medics. The helicopter took a number of hits.

About four in the afternoon, the CO of 2/7 Cav made a fatal error. He requested a napalm strike on the round wood. December was the height of the dry season, and the wind was blowing steadily from the west. This could be seen by the direction that smoke was drifting across the battlefield. The napalm strike went in, delivered by two F-4s. It may have done some damage to the NVA, but what it did for certain was to light a grass fire that swept toward the east, toward “D” Company. The Company now faced an ancient dilemma. My great-grandfather had spoken of having faced the same problem in the Wilderness in 1864. The choice was to lie prone and burn or stand and be shot. According to the medics, most preferred to be shot. In the course of this process, “D” Company’s commander, a young captain, who happened to be a Citadel man, decided he had had enough. With his pockets full of grenades, he crawled as close as possible to the nearest machine gun bunker, and with half a dozen of his men firing in support he rushed the bunker throwing grenades, jumped down into the position and killed all within with his pistol. With this crack in the enemy position, “D” Company moved forward behind him and by nightfall had broken the outer defense perimeter of the 141st. They held half a dozen bunkers. The sun went down. The fight ended. All night long the Cavalry Division moved forces into the area to finish the 141st the next morning.

“Good! Whenever you find a real bastard, especially a dumb bastard

make sure you stake’em down, through the heart, through the heart!”

LTC (Ret.) Walter P. Langto his son, June, 1969

“It is not a mercy to tolerate incompetence in officers, think of the poor men..”

Robert E. Lee, thinking of Bristoe Station

In the morning, the enemy had gone, departed, taking their dead and wounded with them. They had slipped out through some gap in the surrounding lines and simply vanished. “D” Company was extracted and mustered at LZ “Buttons” that afternoon. There were 12 men in the ranks. 52 killed and over 70 wounded was the “Butcher’s Bill” at Ap Bu Nho. This may have been the worst single day’s bloodletting in the Seventh Cavalry since the Little Big Horn in 1876. There too, they had been commanded by a fool. At the muster, the company commander, who was unscathed, stood dry eyed before his remnant while strong men wept, among them, me. I asked the battalion commander and the S-3 how they spelled their names and left. I would have happily killed them both with my own hand, and they seemed to know that.

I sent a report of the action disguised as an intelligence report on the performance of the 141st. It went to every echelon of command above 2/7 Cavalry. Under investigation by division headquarters, the lieutenant colonel later claimed that the agent’s report had been a “provocation” intended to lure him into an ambush. The Division commander was not deceived. 525th MIG saw through my subterfuge and I was admonished for responding to the Operations side’s attempt to scapegoat Intelligence for its own failure. This was the first instance in which I saw this syndrome of the leadership of the intelligence community. I continued to see it for the rest of my government career." from the memoir of W. Patrick Lang

Colonel Lang,
This description brings tears to my eyes as well yours in that battle. It graphically demonstrates the difference between auctoritas and podestas as well as much more. Thank you for sharing, remembering, and reminding us.

I found the NVA to be a very worthy foe. I learned of the "hold them by the belt buckle" tactic the hard way. Just south of the DMZ one of our companies stumbled into a Regimental CP. The Marines were driven back by AK & MG fire. The Marines laid down in the elephant grass about 50m in front of the forward bunkers while we ran air support "danger close". After 3 flights of snake & napalm, the company assaulted again just before dark and was met again with heavy fire. We evacuated our wounded & settled in for the night. When we moved forward the next morning the scorched bunkers were empty. Trails in the grass showed that when the Marines pulled back 50m, the NVA had crawled forward about 35m. After observing a very close air strike, the NVA had crawled back into their buckers & thwarted our second assault. Discipline & guts.

Military medicine got steadily better throughout the 20th Century so the ratio of killed to wounded became lower and lower. Medevac helicopters and forward surgical hospitals made a big difference, but the 52 KIA here in tis one company were killed outright on the field of battle. I do not know how many of the WIA died of their wounds. Remember there were a lot of casualties in the other units of our encirclement. The NVA had a widely distributed system of underground hospitals supplied through the Laos/Cambodia corridor (HCM Trail) but they had to live long enough to be carried to them. I agree with Booby that the NVA were a remarkably tough and dedicated enemy. pl

BTW, I have looked at this place in Google Earth. The Vietnamese government has built a widespread network of hydroelectric dams in the highlands since the war. As a result the site of this combat is buried under a prosperous Vietnamese town. This is one of the few instances of the outright defeat of US forces in the field in the war, along with the loss of Lang Vei SF camp and LZ Albany. At Song Be a few miles away there are actual memorials to the protracted battle in February-March 1969 but not at this place. pl

Just finished watching an hour PBS episode
about James "Maggie" Magellas the most
decorated soldier in the history of the 82nd
Airborne. To paraphrase" How could I send
young 18 and 19 year olds to lead and I stay
in the rear. " A remarkable man for anytime,
he is still alive at 98. That we would have more
like him in all fields of endeavor.

Thank you Colonel. That story really brings it home to me. I was on a somewhat similar disastrous mission during the 1972 NVA Easter offensive. The NVA had taken Quang Tri City, and we were inserting South Vietnamese soldiers at key points around the city of Quang Tri to cut off supplies. Unfortunately, I can't tell you anything about the tactical situation on this particular mission. I was but a WO1 front seat co-pilot gunner in a Cobra gunship at the time. On this particular mission, we (about 10 gunships as I recall) were gun cover for a US Marine insertion of South Vietnamese marines. There were I think about 15 CH-54 Jolly Greens full of the marines. At that time, because of the SA-7 heat-seekers, we had to fly low level. We took massive fire beginning at least 8 or 10 klicks out from the LZ, and then the LZ was hot. The US Marine pilots told us at least half of the troops were dead or wounded from ground fire before they ever got to the LZ. Two of the Jolly Greens went down. Actually, I never made it to the LZ. About 3 kicks out my pilot was hit and the command ship directed us back to the staging area for the pilot to be attended to. His wound turned out to be superficial and he was ok. Like I said, I don't know anything about the tactical situation, but surely there must have been an intelligence failure. Either that, or they felt the risk was worth the prize. They eventually re-took Quang Tri, but it was several months later.

A "click" is US Army slang for a kilometer. A "WO1" is a warrant officer. That is a rank between the enlisted ranks and the commissioned officers, lieutenants and up. The US Army and US Marine Corps have warrant officer pilots as well as commissioned officer pilots. These last are normally the commanders. "LZ" means "Landing Zone." This is the place where the south Vietnamese Marines in this story were to be landed. pl

In the late '60's a Marine LtCol., William Corson, published a book "The Betrayal" criticizing US strategy & tactics in VN. In the final chapter he hypothesized that the Soviet Union could dramatically change the helicopter war in VN any time they wished by giving the NVA the Strela shoulder fired AA missile. In the Easter Offensive, the Soviets played that card. Helo & OV-10 losses in the Quang Tri area were devastating & forced an immediate change of helo tactics. Fly low or die. It took us a decade to develop effective counter-measures to these missiles.

Years later I had a SNCO who worked for me who had crewed a CH-46 inserting VN Marines along the coast north of Quang Tri during '72. The LZ brief warned of a "dead" NVA tank in the LZ. As his AC landed beside the "dead" tank, he saw the turret turn & he was looking down the barrel. The tank fired; but, either it was too close to the helo or the thin aluminum skin of the helo didn't activate the fuse & the round went through his AC as a solid shot.

I was in VN in '72 and remember the advent of the SA-7. as an immediate expedient defense we threw thermite grenades out the doors when we saw one fired. I don't know if that worked well, but I am still here. I also remember seeing an NVA team fir an RPG at a Cobra. The missile did not arm and went right through the boom. pl

I looked up LZ. But I understand that LZ could have both a longer existence, or exist for a slightly longer time then a single LZ for a specific battle. In which case the first type of LZ would be the starting base? Like LZ "Buttons"?

More specifically were only "2/5 Cav" based at "Buttons" and the others were "inserted (?)/were brought in" later, as support? Or was the whole 5 cav, I understand, located there?

In the largely helicopter transported war an LZ could be either a semi-permanent base for aircraft as well as a convenient place where troops could be billeted and supplied or the place where troops would be landed by air in a single operation as in the Quang Tri story. LZ Buttons was named for some officer's girl friend. I think she was a Red Cross girl in Saigon. 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment just happened to be based at LZ Buttons just then. During the VN period US Army infantry and cavalry fighting as infantry were organized by battalions. The regiment, as in this case, 5th Cavalry, only existed as a tradition. Armored Cavalry sxisted as a whole regiment and the 11th Cavalry in VN (the Black Horse) were a formidable group. The US Marines, who, I am sure you know are not part of the Army still had regimental formations. pl

One lucky Cobra crew. Usually when a helo & an RPG met, it was catastrophic for the helo. I hated being shot at with RPG's because the projectile moved slow enough that you could see them coming. Time moves real slowly when you see one coming. I've had them pass through my rotor disc & still don't understand how the projectile could make it through without hitting or being hit by a rotor blade.

A CH-46 from my squadron became a part of Marine Corps history after being hit by an RPG on Mutter's Ridge, just below the DMZ. The climax of the novel "Matterhorn" was based on this incident. A Company was assaulting a hill that was an abandoned Marine LZ. The NVA were fighting from the old Marine bunkers. The CH-46 was departing a neighboring hill with Medevacs when it was hit in the aft pylon by an RPG & burst into flames. The pilot saw a LZ directly below him & shot an emergency landing. The pilot was unaware that the NVA held the hill & the Marines were assaulting the hill & engaged in close combat. The NVA were startled by a flaming CH-46 crashing on them & their defense was disrupted. Some NVA climbed aboard the burning helo & were trying to take the 50 caliber machine guns. There was a gunfight between the crew & the NVA in the cabin of the helo. The Marines won & the NVA abandoned the hill. The Grunts gave our squadron credit for capturing the hill - a 1st & only in Marine Corps history.